Why Paul Guenther's first coordinator job at 25 years old relates to the Raiders

By Matt Schneidman, Bay Area News Group

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Paul Guenther never coached a game at his first defensive coordinator job.

He took a leap of faith to Jacksonville University in 1997 because of Steve Gilbert, Guenther’s college head coach at Ursinus. Gilbert was the head coach for the new Jacksonville U football team, which wouldn’t kick off until the 1998 season. Guenther was an assistant on Gilbert’s 1996 staff at Ursinus and was offered the chance to run a defense, albeit for a team that wouldn’t even play that year.

Instead of playing games in 1997, Jacksonville’s first-ever recruiting class redshirted before the program’s first recorded season the following year. Even if Jacksonville had played in 1997, however, the 25-year-old Guenther wouldn’t have coordinated its defense.

That’s because he was in such high demand as a rising football mind that he secured a head-coaching job at Ursinus after less than two months at his first defensive coordinator gig. He was the youngest head coach in college football that year.

Yet during that brief stint working under Gilbert in Northern Florida, Guenther showed his mentor and former coach something that sticks with him more than two decades later. With Guenther entering another defensive coordinator job, this time with the Raiders instead of Jacksonville U, Gilbert still sees some of that blossoming 25-year-old coach in his former protege as the now-46-year-old faces the arduous task of rescuing Oakland’s defense.

"The thing I appreciated most about Paul is he was able to think outside the box," Gilbert said. "He wasn’t afraid to try things and be a little bit unusual maybe in some of the fronts and coverages and blitzes, try some things that may not be as conventional as some folks. I’m sure that’s been part of his success over the years."

In those two months as Gilbert’s defensive coordinator, Guenther proved why his vast inexperience wouldn’t swallow him in a bigger role – and that was even before starting an even bigger gig. Gilbert fondly remembers Guenther repeatedly entering his office, eager and unafraid, jotting down defensive ideas on his white board without hesitation or fear they might fail.

"I was an offensive coach, so I would look at the other perspective and I would go like, ‘Paul, that would cause us some problems if you did that,’" Gilbert said. "(He was) always interested and not afraid to try new things, even if it would be maybe a little bit unconventional to some folks … I never thought he was in over his head. I never thought his age was gonna hold him back, whereas some people that’s a concern, that’s a challenge."

Guenther’s youthful exuberance was a positive – Gilbert said it probably would’ve been a detriment for his own younger self – and it led to a fluid trial and error process. That creativity Guenther displayed while planning for a team without a roster? He’ll need more of that with Khalil Mack and Co. if the Raiders want to be taken seriously as an NFL defense. It was John Pagano, whose creativity in varying looks along Oakland’s defensive front, who helped spike the Raiders’ sack totals late in the season despite their defense finishing well into the league’s bottom half in most major categories.

Talking to Bay Area media for the first time earlier this month, Guenther teased some of his creativity we might see. The frequency of Oakland blitzes, he said, will be based on how many rushers can pressure the quarterback if he first sends only four. The most significant blitz to Guenther is getting Mack one-on-one. That could be against a tight end, a running back or a tackle Mack owns a clear advantage over. Guenther values quarterback pressures more than blitzes, but if the former aren’t happening there will be more of the latter.

Just as his mind spun with ideas of how to best reach a quarterback 21 years ago, Guenther found himself doing the same eight months ahead of coordinating his first meaningful game for the Raiders.

"I love blitzing, I got every blitz in the book up on my board here," Guenther said. "We got it all – double A’s, overloads – any blitz you can imagine, we have it."

According to Austin Gayle of Pro Football Focus, the Raiders finished 22nd in the league with 201 quarterback pressures this season. The Bengals, even though they had personnel advantages over Oakland, finished vastly better with 244 pressures (tied for second in the NFL).

"I met Paul Guenther when my brother was the offensive coordinator of the Bengals," new Raiders head coach Jon Gruden said at his introduction earlier this month. "I loved the way the Bengals played defense. Up the field, single gap, get after you."

However it may materialize, that creativity Guenther has shown throughout his career can only help the Raiders.

He first flashed it as an unproven 25-year-old for a team that didn’t even exist yet, and it may just be that same trait 21 years later that helps Oakland’s defense over the hump.